


Conversations with Deadly People

by stephrc79



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:35:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2489609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephrc79/pseuds/stephrc79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Natalia - as he likes to call her - just hanging out, chatting on a Saturday Night.</p><p>In response to <a href="http://meringutan.tumblr.com">Meringutan's</a> request (who designed the tattoo now branded on my arm):<br/>"Write me one about a conversation between Natasha and Bucky, where they talk about their past a little and Bucky tells Natasha about his insecurities about pursuing a relationship with Steve."</p><p>It's not <i>quite</i> what you wanted, but I still hope you love it. </p><p>Thanks for the tattoo, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations with Deadly People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meringutan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Meringutan).



Without turning, he reached up and caught the projectile aimed for his head. And despite the fact that he caught it with his metal hand, he still managed not to shatter the beer bottle.

“Seriously, how do you _do_ that?” Natalia asked as she flopped down on the opposite end of the couch and twisted the top off her own bottle. There was a hint of awe in her eyes, which for her might as well have been her emotions being broadcast from a bullhorn.

Bucky smirked, but didn’t bother with an answer. Instead he twisted the cap off his own bottle, turned back towards the kitchen, and flicked it between his fingers. The cap sailed cleanly through the air, landing in the open trash can next to the sink.

Natalia laughed in delight. “You know, you shouldn’t be able to do that with your metal hand, either.” She leaned back against the arm of the couch, one leg tucked up underneath the other. Her eyes went wide in mock earnest. “Teach me your ways, Obi-wan.”

“Sorry, doll face, but that’s classified information,” Bucky said with a wink. “You’ve seen _Top Gun_ ; you know what that means.” He took a swig of his beer, only to grimace at the bitter taste. “You know, what is it with you and this microbrew, IPA bullshit? What’s wrong with just a good ol’ fashioned, regular —”

“Stadium beer?” Natalia cut in helpfully. “You know, things _have_ changed in the last millennia,” she added, giving him a cheeky grin, the little shit.

“Not necessarily for the better,” he countered.

“You grew up in the Great Depression, then turned around and went off to war. Can you _honestly_ tell me what you had back then was better?”

Buck opened his mouth to retort, but quickly shut it. He had no good answer to that. The only time he and Steve had ever had anything that would’ve resembled good alcohol was right after Steve had rescued him and the rest of the 107th from the HYDRA base. Colonel Phillips had brought the two of them back to his bunker for a drink, as a way to say thanks to Steve. It was some sort of scotch, but Bucky could barely taste it. He’d still been recovering from what Zola had done to him and his whole body was still buzzing on some random frequency.

So, instead he scowled at Natalia and picked up his cards. “It’s your turn, you know.”

With a smirk, she set down her beer and picked up her own cards. Then her face... changed — an eerie blankness settling over her normally playful features. She gazed at Bucky, unblinking, as the full weight of her icy stare bored into him — like she could physically touch his soul. He distantly worried that might be what she was trying to do.

She licked her lips, but never broke eye contact. He could feel a bead of sweat forming at his temple under her scrutinization, and prayed to God she couldn’t see it.

Finally, she opened her mouth and asked, “Do you have any sixes?”

Relief flooded through him, and he smiled. “Go Fish.”

Her expression broke and she smiled back before reaching over to grab a card. Then she gazed up at him triumphantly and crowed, “Aha!” before she flipped the card around, revealing the offending number. “A _six_!”

“Motherfucker,” Bucky grumbled. He flopped back against the couch and took a hard swig of his beer before remembering, oh that’s right, he hated it. _Wow_ , his night was not working out for him.

And yeah, true. He and Steve may not have had access to the finer things in life, but they made do. And stadium beer was _glorious_. It was hot dogs and pop flies and Tex Carleton. It was two punk kids, scraping together a couple bucks, spending an afternoon hoping a home-run ball would fly their way.

Now it was corporations and _branding_ and, and... fucking _the Dodgers in LA!_

Was nothing sacred anymore?

“You know, Steve would agree with me,” Bucky shot back, somewhat petulantly. Okay, maybe a lot petulantly.

“What?”

“The beer,” Bucky huffed. “Steve thinks all your microbrews are shit, too.”

“Because that’s a reliable source,” she commented dryly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means a lot of things,” Natalia responded with a shrug. She looked up from her cards. “It means you’re both nonagenarians who refuse to admit you’re overly nostalgic. It means you guys are best friends and practically share a brain —”

“Which just means Steve’s smart enough to recognize the good from the crap,” Bucky cut in, waving the beer bottle at her.

“— and it _also_ means that Steve will agree with whatever you say,” Natalia finished.

Taken aback, Bucky stopped, holding the bottle in mid-air. “Okay, what does _that_ mean?” he asked, humor giving way to confusion.

Natalia sighed and set her cards down on the coffee table, along with her beer. But she didn’t answer right away. She just sat back against the couch, watching Bucky — assessing him. Finally, she said, “Can you honestly tell me you’ve never noticed that Steve seems particularly attached to the phrase, ‘Whatever you want, Bucky’?”

Bucky dropped his gaze as he set his bottle down. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he muttered.

Of course, that was an absolute crock of shit. He knew exactly what she was talking about. And it was obvious she knew he knew, by the way he could feel her eyes boring into him.

He stared intently at his cards, resolutely ignoring her. A couple of twos, a three, queen, and jack... and, oh hey! He was one card away from a full set of tens.

Okay, so maybe she couldn’t touch his soul, but he was fairly certain that right now she was drilling into his head and trying to play with his brain. Hysterically, he almost reached up to see if there was an honest-to-God hole in his forehead.

Bucky spent the next five minutes staring at his cards. He knew he was being a coward, but he was stubborn as all hell, and goddammit, he _taught_ Natalia interrogation tactics. She wasn’t going to break him.

She wasn’t breaking him.

“Fuck. Fine!” Bucky tossed his cards onto the table and finally looked up. Natalia had barely moved, save for the tiny triumphant half-smile on her face. With a soft grumble, Bucky pulled his feet up on the couch and scowled at her. “Think it’s time you teach me _your_ ways, Mace Windu.”

“Please,” Natalia huffed. She took a fast swig of her beer. “I’m _totally_ Yoda.”

That cracked Bucky. He barked out a laugh and exclaimed, “Yoda, my ass! How can you possibly think you’re Yoda?” With a softer chuckle, he pushed off the couch and headed for the kitchen. He needed a real beer.

“Small. Mostly complacent. Can kick your ass all over the map, parkour-style, when you mess with the dark side?”

Bucky laughed again as he opened the fridge. He really couldn’t argue with that. “All right, then. Yoda, it is.” He rooted around in the fridge until he found the Michelob Amber Bock he’d hidden in the back. Steve was either too lazy to look, or was just being nice, saving Bucky the last one. Probably the latter. With a soft, affectionate smile, he shut the door, and turned back to the couch. “You can officially be my little green monster.”

With an indignant squawk, Natalia grabbed the pillow from behind her back and flung it at Bucky’s head. He deftly caught it and flung it back in the span of a single breath. She in turn caught it, and laughed as she tucked it back behind her. “Is this why Clint and Steve usually have to break up our sparring sessions?” She took a sip of her beer and tilted her head in curiosity. “Are we too stubborn or too evenly matched?”

“Oh, both. Definitely.” Bucky flopped back down onto his spot on the couch. He popped the cap off his bottle, tossing it aside. He took a drink, stalling — he knew he was stalling. With a sigh, he gazed at Natalia and said, “All right. What were you going on about with Steve?”

“He doesn’t know how to say no to you, or contradict you at all, for that matter.”

Bucky flinched at the abrupt answer. “Wow, Natalia. Way to sugar-coat it.”

She gave him a serene smile. “Did you really expect any different from me?”

“Shouldn’t you at least be nicer than this?”

“We’re Russian, Bucky. I _am_ being nice.”

“Yeah, but I’m not _really_ Russian,” Bucky pointed out.

Natalia shrugged. “Close enough.”

Bucky slowly turned the beer bottle in his hands, watching as it spun between metal and flesh. “I know he doesn’t. He just...” With a frustrated huff, Bucky shifted back against the couch, suddenly uncomfortable. “Ever since I came back to him, he’s been so scared of making sure I had my ‘free will’” — he made air quotes, the beer tucked into his metal hand — “he won’t tell me what he wants. He waits for me to make a decision and just... _goes_ with it, regardless of what it is. And considering he has the survival instincts of a _lemming_ , well...”

Irritation crept up Bucky’s spine, and he took a hard swig of his beer, practically polishing it off in one shot. “I bet I could suggest we go sky-diving without parachutes, and he’d go, “Sure, Buck. Whatever you want.”

“Well, to be fair, he’s actually done that before. On several occasions,” Natalia calmly reminded him.

“Not over solid rock, he hasn’t,” Bucky shot back.

“I wasn’t trying to make you angry, James,” Natalia said, still just as calm. “I was really just making an off-handed comment. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if you’d noticed.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Seems I hit a sore spot, though?”

“Maybe a little,” Bucky grumbled. Then he really did finish off his beer before setting it next to the unfinished one.

“You need to talk to him about it.” Natalia tilted her head down to catch his eye, her voice etched with wary reservation.

“You don’t think I don’t know that?” Bucky snapped, glaring at her. He instantly felt guilty, and again averted his eyes, reaching for the offending beer he was curiously now more than willing to drink. “Sorry,” he muttered.

She shrugged, unfazed. She knew him so well.

“You know, if it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing with Clint after that whole Loki business.”

Bucky looked up, hopeful. “You? Really?”

She smirked. “No, not really.” She must have noticed Bucky’s instant frustration, because she hastily added, “Well, I _was_ worried about making sure he had a say, but it was more to do with the missions we went on, and what was needed of him.” She reached out and lightly kicked at Bucky’s shin. “It’s actually the whole reason he wasn’t around during the Shield/Hydra situation. I got the impression that it was too big, too soon for him after the Battle of New York, so I let him bow out.” She quietly laughed at an unshared memory. “Let’s just say that afterwards? He wasn’t exactly happy with me for not being straight with him.”

“Sounds familiar,” Bucky said wryly. He knew there were things Steve wasn’t sharing with him, but at the same time Steve was constantly making sure that Bucky always had the information he needed to make his own decisions. The only problem was that Steve never _weighed in_ on those decisions. Never gave Bucky his opinion — too afraid of swaying Bucky into making a decision that Bucky might not want.

“That’s not a compromise,” Bucky answered himself.

“What?”

Bucky shook his head. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking.” He really needed to stop segueing his inner-monologues.

He shook his head again and took a drink, wincing at the taste. Then he looked up at Natalia. “If you don’t give your opinion, you’re not letting Clint decide for himself. He wants all the information, and you’re important to him, so your opinion matters when he’s got to decide on things. If you don’t tell him how you feel, he still doesn’t have free will.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “We talking about Clint or are we talking about you?”

“You know, you don’t _really_ gotta be that blunt!”

Natalia laughed. “You walked right into that one, Barnes, and you know it.”

“Fuck off, _Romanov_.”

Natalia slowly shrugged. “Meh. Been there, done that. Moved on to greener pastures.”

“Oh my _fucking_ God, Natalia!” Bucky exclaimed, choking on a laugh. “Seriously, _fuck you_.”

“Like I said —”

She laughed, long and hard, as the pillow smacked her squarely in the face.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come play with me on tumblr at [stephrc79](http://www.stephrc79.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I promise I don't bite. Well, not unless you ask nicely.
> 
> ~~~~
> 
> The lovely Meringutan drew me arts to go with it!


End file.
